Once upon a time it would have been somewhat shameful, Qantas getting tagged with a $69 million fine for price fixing (i.e. stealing) in the US. We might have felt a smear of their guilt rubbing off on the rest of us because it was the national airline.

But I'll lay money on the barrelhead that nobody cried themselves to sleep last night on behalf of the flying rat, and not just because it's no longer a public entity. If there was any sense of vicarious shame it would have been of the German variety; Schadenfreude, or shameful joy, at the prospect of some well deserved humiliation for a gang of corporate crims who've been shaking the rest of us down for years. Just like Richard "Panstdown" Pratt's cardboard box empire, Visy, was stealing, yes stealing money by conniving with their main rival Amcor to set prices above natural market levels.

When you take money off someone by sneaky, illegal means you are generally stealing from them. Or at least you are if you happen to be some drug-addled loser breaking into parked cars to ransack the cup holders for spare change. Perhaps not so much if you happen to be a sticky-fingered billionaire or multinational company thieving hundreds of millions of dollars by rigging the market.

You might cop a fine, which you can more than afford to pay given the profits you extorted or scammed from the rest of us over the years, but unlike a common mugger or housebreaking junkie, it seems you won't often have to factor a spot of jail time into your cost benefit analyses. Sure, every now and then some pin striped shonk like Rodney Adler will be so egregiously crooked they'll end up in stir, but it does rather seem, doesn't it, that trousering 50 or 60 million dollars of somebody else's hard-earned is a much safer bet than standing over them in a laneway for whatever folding stuff they've got in their wallet.

Even killing for profit won't necessarily see you playing pick up the soap in one of our many fine correctional institutions nowadays - if the profit is big enough. How otherwise to explain the lack of murder or manslaughter charges for some of those at James Hardie who doomed hundreds of their workers to an excruciating death by exposing them to asbestos dust when they knew full well what they were doing.

I don't know what thoughts went through the minds of those cynical men and women when Bernie Banton finally died this week. Relief probably. But I know that fear of being prosecuted for killing him wasn't foremost in their considerations.

In the end though, how are they any different from whoever gunned down that poor dad in Wollongong earlier this week? Metaphorically, they pointed a gun and pulled the trigger. They kept doing it for years, and then like any crim, denied they had. And how are Qantas or Visy or any of our other cashed-up corporate villains any different from the low-rent criminals politicians love to demonise in their endless get tough on crime campaigns?

How many times over the last eleven and half years did John Howard warn his followers against hubris, the sin of wallowing publicly in their own imagined brilliance?

How great is the damage done to his beloved party by the man's own intolerable conceit and pride? What chance we'd now be contemplating a Costello Government had life at Kirribilli not proved so fatally entrancing for John and Janette?

Well, on that last one at least, possibly not much chance at all.

The polls turned bad on Howard the month he introduced Work Choices and used his unexpected majority in the Senate to ram through legislation he had never bothered to clear with the punters via an election. Kim Beazley was still Labor leader at that point and he knew that Howard's obsession with destroying the unions and, by extension, empowering bosses to treat their work force as nothing more than disposable inputs was a gross political miscalculation.

Not that all bosses did, and not that all workers suffered. Sometimes the flexibility was of great advantage to both, especially in the resource-based industries of WA and Queensland. But given the backlog of thousands of AWAs still needing to be checked against the former government's fairness test _ a test introduced as an acknowledgment that many people had been unfairly treated _ it was surely not beyond the ability of any half smart political realist to figure out that Howard had made a boo boo. A terrible, world changing boo boo.

It's not often that governments actually do reach right into the lives of their citizens with malign effect, but there must have been tens of thousands of so-called Howard battlers who were forced to endure the humiliating trauma of losing pay and conditions under his Work Choices laws. And the humiliation would not simply be a matter of whatever was lost, but also of their complete inability to do anything about it.

You take all that from a person, and they will have their vengeance.

Still, in the middle of a long boom with low unemployment and comparatively low interest rates, I don't know that Work Choices explains all the swing. Other factors had to be in play, and apparently one of them was the infamous parochialism of the deep north. It's hard to credit that anyone could be so dumb as to vote for a party on the basis of the leader's home address, but some ALP strategists have attributed up to two points worth of Rudd's win simply to his being a Brisbane boy. It's as though tens of thousands of local voters stomped into the polling booths on Saturday roaring `QUEENSLANDER! QUEENSLANDER!' like some half-witted maroon forward on a testosterone jag in the first game of the Origin series.

Does anyone else have an explanation for the size of the swing? Really, ol' JB would love to know how he got it so wr... wr... wr... uh, so much less right than usual. For looking back a few Blunties I see now that my brilliant prediction of a narrow government win was, well, bollocks. I can only hope that Maximum McKew will save me from complete disgrace by tipping the Rodent out of Bennelong as predicted.

Finally, anyone who thinks they made the most accurate call here back in mid October can put their hand up for a free autographed book. Felafel, Leviathan or Weapons, take your pick. I'm not gonna check though. There's like a hundred and ten comments in that thread and I'm still hung over after Saturday night.

-----

L'il post script.

I had this in the comments section but pulled it up here because I really wanted to add something about Costello's jumping ship. He's been getting a ton of bad press for wimping out but I admire him for having the courage to go. Howard made that poor bastard his number one butt boy for over a decade. Even on Saturday he couldn't let the chump have a few minutes to himself and interrupted his televised speech to his electorate workers and supporters. It was breathtaking. So having been thoroughly cornholed by the Rodent he's now supposed to roll over and take it for another three years? Drinking deep of the poison chalice, getting wiped out next time, and dumped for Turnbull in 2010?

I dont think so.

Good luck to him making some money in the private sector. He actually does deserve it. He never had the numbers but he wasn't so consumed with ego driven power lust that he would destroy his party for his own aims anyway. Not like a few ex-PMs we could mention. His loyalty was of the best sort. Given to an office and a team rather than a man he didn't respect.

I never voted for him. Never would. But the wolf pack mauling he's suffered this week has been ugly and ill considered.

It's vexing to me, as I'm sure it is to all of you, that this far into The Most Important Election Since the End of The War - any War, Cold, World, Boer, Zombie, they're all good - anyway, it's vexing in the extreme that neither side will engage with the issues of importance to me, and I'm sure, you.

Water, education, energy security, industrial relations and yes even zombies, these are all tenth order irrelevancies people. Not that our would-be leaders are really talking about them anyway. But what I want to know is what Tin Tin and the Rodent intend to do to protect us from invasion by ruthless, pan galactic space monkey overlords.

These superchimps are already amongst us and have begun to use their vastly superior brain control technology to take over our planet's leadership.

What's that? Where's the evidence?

Well how about the decades long conspiracy by the US Air Force to suppress any information about the arrival and occasional capture on Earth of long-range alien scout ships to gather scientific data from our precious redneck and trailer trash DNA pool by means of very large, cold, banana-shaped anal probes.

Here at the Instrument we take your concerns very seriously indeed. There are, of course, many space monkey overlord deniers in the mainstream media, with many of them being slavish if ill-concealed meat puppets of the evil chimps - Piers Akerman, for instance, who disguises himself as a giant sentient toad to distract attention from the large, flashing remote control unit clipped to the back of his head and controlled, remotely, by a team of sabre-toothed orang-utans in the basement of the News Ltd Death Star.

Can there be any other explanation for Piers?

It is telling, don't you think, that the many, many emails, phone calls, faxes and even late night personal visits I have made to both minister and shadow minister alike to demand answers on your behalf have gone unanswered, for the most part, unless restraining orders and AVOs count.

But the chimps have not triumphed just yet. We still have Saturday. And when you go into that ballot box and make your mark please, for the love of God, please just ask yourself, is the candidate you're voting for pointedly ignoring the 800-pound gorilla in the room? With the laser gun? And the icy cold butt probe?

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I saw a whale breaching just off shore at Rainbow Bay a few weeks back. Not sure what sort. One of the big ones. It hauled itself out of the sea, a great glistening dark blue mass, twirled and crashed back into the water, playing, apparently. It was a beautiful early spring day, cloudless but not too hot, and hundreds of people followed the giant as it moved up and down the coastline.

I don't know where it was headed, what sort of whale it was, or whether it's likely to end up diced into small cubes of shrink-wrapped pink blubber in a Japanese 7-11 any time soon. But I guess there'd be a good chance of that, if it strayed into the wrong neighbourhood, such as the so-called whale sanctuary off Australia's Antarctic territory.

Because in a couple of weeks some other visitors are going to be cruising those chilly waters too. The floating slaughterhouseNisshin Maru and its three support ships.

It's hard to rank some the characters in this unfolding narrative in order of villainy, but I guess the Japanese government and its risibly named Institute of Cetacean Research wouldn't have many challengers for the top spot. The Institute's only real area of study is devising the most practical cut of blubber cube to avoid embarrassing incidents of chopstick droppage at its special research facilities, otherwise known as 'noodle bars'.

The current Australian government position of furrowing its brow and shaking its head and muttering darkly that it's all just 'teddible, absowutwy teddible' is inexplicably lame, given how many votes there are usually to be had for the Rodent bashing up foreigners. Although Labor's alternative position of vaguely promising to do something with the Navy, possibly involving "uh, uhm, you know, watching them, really really closely" is potentially even lamer. Why invoke the imagery of military action and all of the attendant diplomatic angst if, bottom line, you actually intend to do nothing?

For once, I'm going to hand it to the greens. Specifically Greenpeace and, even more so, the admirably piratical Sea Shepherds. They're not going to screw around with polite manoeuvring on the diplomatic party circuit, cutting the Japanese ambassador off at the buffet as he reaches for the prawn cocktail and giving him a frightfully strong glare.

They're hauling anchor and pouring on steam for the hunting waters, where they will launch a series of dangerous, ill-advised, illegal and possibly fatal actions to sabotage Tokyo's whaling fleet.

So, can Tin-Tin have his $60 billion cake and eat it too? Or rather, feed it to us in great, big sugary scoops of cakey goodness, only to hold back the last little bit and say, "No, better not, that would be bad for you."

Because that's what it feels like, his new found virtue of not promising to blow nearly as much of the budget lolly as the Rodent. After all, when you've wagered the better part of a $60 billion windfall on a punt at hijacking the Prime Ministerial hottub, does it really matter that you kept a couple of bill' in reserve, just to prove you really are a fiscal tightwad of the first order.

Does anybody else feel slightly ill at the prospect of both major party leaders hosing money around like drunken sailors in a Chechen bordello when the economy is jammed up tight against the edge of its capacity constraints? Did I miss something? Is the Reserve Bank not raking money out of the economy with interest rate hikes because it's concerned that pressure is building up, like in an old-fashioned steam engine that could explode in all of our faces? And meanwhile, the Rodent and Tin Tin are pouring on the heat, via tax cuts and spending promises.

And what are they spending that money on? Some infrastructure, for sure, that will increase the economy's ability to grow without forcing up prices, but billions more are going in naked bribes, massive vote-buying binges by both sides, neither of whom will be able to deliver on their promises if the economy tanks because of their binge.

Has Tin Tin finally picked up on the Fear that's seeping into public consciousness? That these guys might be blowing our dream ride in their desperation to grab and hold onto power? Does he think that he can have it both ways? Living large on the public tit, but somehow pretending he's not? Because, he's right. The 'reckless spending' must eventually stop. But you can't really claim to be virginal when you've already given away 90% of your booty.

Maybe it's our fault. Maybe if we weren't such greedy, self-interested and easily bribed fickle mush-heads, politicians wouldn't feel the need to lie and brown bag their way into office. What would you do in their situation? Just imagine for a moment that you're Da Man, in a non-sexist sort of way. You've just discovered a lazy $60 billion you 'overlooked' before calling the poll. What are you going to do with it?

Only one caveat, you can't stamp on the accelerator and turn the economy into a fireball.

Pssst. Come 'ere a second would you, while Citykat's not looking. I'm just going to steal a bit of her turf.

I visited an old love over the weekend. A place, not a person. A neighbourhood, where I lived for about seven years while I was dating a girl I'd met when I wrote for Rolling Stone. She worked in the ad department and rented a room in this enormous, decaying terrace just down the hill from Kings Cross in Sydney.

A lot of stories in Felafel came out of that house, and out of the houses and apartments in the streets around it. Almost as many as came out of Brisneyland's golden triangle of student suburbs; Toowong, Taringa and St Lucia.

I loved those streets. I walked them every day and got to know every junkie, every alleyway, every bar and club and seedy dive. I knew their rhythms and moods, when they wanted to party and when they were best left alone. Those streets and everything and everyone in them were my friends. It was like the Chilli Peppers song, I walked through her streets, and the city she loved me.

Of course, the girlfriend was part of those streets. She'd lived there long before I rolled in to mess with her life and, being fair about it, she owned 'em. So when it was over I had to leave. I got a good deal. Moved to the beach, and once I traded my black jeans and Redback boots for boardies and bare feet, things were cool again, at least for me.

But for nearly ten years I lost my city privileges, or at least the keys to that part of the inner city I'd once haunted and still loved. There's always an inevitable division of the spoils when a relationships crashes and burns - my choice and my fault, by the way, in case you were wondering.

The books, the music and dvds, the wall-mounted singing trout, they all have to be split up and apportioned at the end of things. But who gets the streets where you once walked? I only went back over the weekend because I happened to be in Sydney for work and I knew she was gone. Married and moved to England and good luck to her. She deserved better than my total lack of commitment.

But if she hadn't, would there have been a time when my exile was over, when I could have returned, not to her, but that little world once shared and then given up?

Sergeant Michael Lyddiard gave up one arm and one eye for you. Maybe you didn't ask him to. Nobody really wanted him to, least of all his family. But when a jihadi bomb he was defusing by the side of the road in Oruzgan Province detonated, taking his body apart, the politics and the rhetoric became, for just a moment, profoundly banal.

They won't stay that way though.

Already questions have been asked about why, when the US has deployed over 5000 sophisticated robotic bomb detection and disposal untits to Afghanistan and Iraq, the Australian Defence Force still relies on sniffer dogs and men like Michael Lyddiard to tinker with massive, unstable, explosive booby traps at the side of the road in some dust blown hell hole.

Because they don't need to.

This government, which so enjoys its reputation as the Diggers' friend, and which so eagerly exploits stirring imagery of the Australian military for its own gain, doesn't necessarily deserve the free pass it gets on national security.

Lyddiard's comrades and family, and you, the people who sent him to Afghanistan through the agency of your elected government, you all need to ask yourself why he became a casualty, when these clowns can whip up tens of billions of dollars in previously unannounced budget surpluses but can't find the chump change to look after him and his mates properly.

The troops currently deployed in Timor and the Solomons would probably, just on the quiet, like to know why something as basic as the procurement of their uniforms seems to be beyond the ability of the government to manage. At the other end of the spectrum, larger capital projects like the Sea Sprite chopper and the Navy's $2 billion frigate upgrade remain a pathetic shambles.

Looming over everything, of course, is the war in Iraq, which seems to induce in Canberra a dissociative psychosis whereby the government can argue on one hand that the continued deployment of a token force is necessary to prosecute the War on Terror, while simultaneously denying that 'taking the fight' to al Qaeda involves any corresponding increase in the threat level to Australian citizens or interests anywhere in the world.

Surely it can't be too hard to admit that if you decide to fight someone the chances of them striking back are increased. Declaring war on Germany in September 1939 doubtless had the effect of exposing Australia to violence by the armed forces of the Third Reich. Why is Iraq and the wider conflict with Fascist Islam any different?

None of this is to endorse the Labor Party as a reliable alternative on national security questions. They were the ones who so ran down the Australian Army that it came very close to being unable to do its job in East Timor back in 1999. And lets not forget that it was the ALP which patented the appeasement paradigm for dealing with that particular issue. Nothing in their platform or performance inspires any sense of confidence. Tin Tin's crazy scheme to haul the Iranian president in front of some hairy legged human rights tribunal was cringe-making at best.

But why, having mismanaged so many security questions so badly, does the Rodent still get a big tick on that issue?

Where's the nukes? As I recall, coupla months back, the PM could hardly contain his giddy pleasure at the idea of building a fast-breedin' nuclear reactor in everyone's backyard because he'd finally realised that climate change was a bit of a problem, at least for his poll numbers, and the only way forward was 'clean green' atomic power.

Can't tell you how much it brightened my day every time he deployed that 'clean green' schtick. Oh it brought tears of mirth to the eyes it did, Guvnor.

But here we are deep in the middle of the election campaign and try as I might, I can't detect any great policy enthusiasm on the Rodent's part for our new best friend, the mighty atom. Oh sure, Deputy Pete gave us a bit of a tickle in the treasurer's debate about how Labor were shutting the door on 'clean coal' and nuclear power. But other than that, the government just doesn't seem all that keen to talk about it at the moment.

I wonder why.

Anyway, I've been doing some pondering and - steady now, grab something if you feel dizzy - I've come around part way to the Rodent's way of thinking. But not in any sense he's gonna enjoy. I think he might be right that any carbon limiting scheme that doesn't involve the emerging super polluters of India and China isn't worth jack. So too with Russia and Brazil. Collectively known as the BRIC group in wonk circles. But of course that's a cop-out isn't it. Because as a realist the Rodent would know for a stone certainty that those guys are never going to agree to limit their emissions in any significant fashion, not while they still lag so far behind the developed world. And really, who the hell are we to expect them to? We wouldn't.

So perhaps the game isn't all about emission caps. Perhaps it actually is about a technological fix. And not just BS and pixie dust sprinkled over the entrenched interests of the coal industry or the happy funsters who brought you Three Mile Island and Chernobyl. Perhaps what's needed is real R&D funding. Billions of dollars of the stuff by us. Hundreds of billions world-wide. About the same amount as is spent on military R&D, for instance. Not a gargantuan sum, but not some pissant gesture like a couple of million here and there, most of it getting trousered by Big Coal and Oil.

Behaviour change can go some way towards helping curb energy use. But with half the planet's population desperate to live as well and as profligately as those of us in the fabulous first world, turning off the lights when you leave the room, or walking rather than driving down to the corner store, just aren't going to do it. The maths are all wrong. Even without the BRIC nations plugging into the global power grid and sucking more and more juice into their own rapidly expanding economies, our own economic growth would be more than enough to deplete what's left of the world's fossil fuel store.

That's what so dispiriting about this current period. There's an obvious problem, and it's not just about the environment. It's about energy. Our entire civilization is built on cheap, instantly available energy. And it's getting scarce. Even hard core climate change deniers would surely have a woody for the idea of decoupling our strategic fortunes from the dark ages theme park of Middle Eastern oil politics. But what is anyone anywhere really doing about it?

Consider the morning person. After your vegan and your gimlet-eyed cyclist, is there a more useless oxygen thief in the human family? Of course the incidence of all three conditions in one malefactor is not entirely unknown, with many lentil-eating pedal freaks known to enjoy stepping out in the pre-dawn hours, just to get a head start on their evil schemes.

But let us consider the morning person in isolation. Other than the friendly baker, up in the wee hours preparing our muffiny sweet treats and bacon-and-egg breakfast rolls, what call is there for any civilised individual to be gladly about their business before the sun rises? Yes, of course, some of us are forced to rise before sparrow's by the demands of the free market or the rigors of military discipline. But being of sound mind we do not enjoy it.

What malign force drives the dark engine of the morning people's souls that they can be so damnably chipper when, having woken the sane proportion of the population with their crockery banging and pot-and-pan rattling and bumping and grinding to Aerobics Oz Style reruns, they are assailed by the all too reasonable grunts, and snarls and legally justifiable incidents of grievous bodily harm directed at them by the rest of us - the grumpy, sleep-deprived normals.

I am tired, my slothful friends - for I assume, if we gathered today we would all be inclined to regard the midday movie as breakfast television were we not all ensnared in the sucking gravity well of the morning peoples' godforsaken up-and-at-'em intrigues. I am tired of these vacant-headed, sparkly-eyed, fully paid-up passengers on the good ship lollypop setting the agenda of our days.

Who, for instance, says breakfast should be such a rushed affair, wolfed down because some jabbering moron with a woody for the predawn gloom decides that business hours start at nine, or, god help us, even earlier! Why not eleven? Or one? After a properly relaxed start to the day? With a proper breakfast, as recommended by Doctor Thompson;

"Four Bloody Marys, two grapefruits, a pot of coffee, Rangoon crepes, a half-pound of either sausage, bacon, or corned beef hash with diced chillies, a Spanish omelette or eggs Benedict, a quart of milk, a chopped lemon for random seasoning, and something like a slice of Key lime pie, two margaritas, and six lines of the best cocaine for dessert.... Right, and there should also be two or three newspapers, all mail and messages, a telephone, a notebook for planning the next twenty-four hours and at least one source of good music.... All of which should be dealt with outside, in the warmth of a hot sun, and preferably stone naked."

Would a morning person understand any of this? No, I say! Halfway through the first grapefruit they'd be all a-twitter and a-flutter, their shrivelled little hearts seizing up with fear that they might possibly miss out on some negligible advantage through wasting the merest moment on such fripperies as actually savouring a well-brewed coffee or mulling over all the delicious indelicacies of Viscount Linley's unfortunate episode in the morning press.

It would be so very amusing if they were content to keep to themselves, but of course they cannot. The defining characteristic of the morning person is a complete inability to mind their own business. They take offence, a deep visceral offence, at the very idea of anyone not springing into the day with all the energy and gusto of a squirrel on a speed binge. And so they seek us in our doona lairs. Harassing, haranguing, pestering and generally raising the level of misery in a world with a super abundance of it already.

In this fast-paced go-go world of ours some issues are too important to be left to the ham-fisted, half-arsed witless hysterics of so-called web journalism. But that's too bad. Because that's all John Birmingham has. He's unfair, unreasonable and often unbalanced but in a good way. Words are weapons, and this weapon is a Blunt Instrument.

What makes this city tick? And what need be said, no SHOUTED, to keep it ticking in a true direction? Well-versed wordsmith Rupert McCall rides the undercurrent of a passionate notion all the way to the answers. Rhyme or reason? He'll let you be the judge...

The Magic Spray is a Monday sports column that affronts your senses like Dencorub to the groin. Like its real-life counterpart that's cured countless corked thighs, it may leave you feeling slightly numb, dulling the pain of another working week.

Mother, wife, housekeeper and family diplomat Heidi Davoren does a lot of laundry. She can peg a line full of undies quicker than George Bush can duck a flying shoe. For those of you who battle the mundane and ridiculous on a daily basis – school fees, preservatives, family budgets, soiled pants and banana stains – gorge on guilt-free parenting advice here.

For those who think gossip is a dish best served scalding, there's no need to wade through the magazines or cyberspace for the grittiest pop culture news. Because Georgia Waters has done that for you. She takes the celebrity world for the madness that it truly is. And it's enough to make a starlet choke on her silver spoon.

It's the blog that tackles the serious issues that impact on the lives of Queenslanders. We'll take on the bureaucracy; question and challenge the decision makers; put pressure on the movers and shakers and stick up for the little guy.

Babes in Business are Brisbane women that stand out in a crowd. Not only are they business owners, entrepreneurs, movers and shakers, they are wives, girlfriends, mothers, sisters and daughters. They'll give working women throughout the city the best tips on striking the balance between work and home life.

Regarded as history’s best female surfer, Layne Beachley is a seven-time world champion. But her drive doesn’t stop at the water’s edge. She's had success with her Beachley Athletic and in 2006, Layne staged the richest event in women’s surfing. Recently retired, Layne has turned her focus to investing in Australia’s future by inspiring young women to realise their full potential with her Aim For The Stars Foundation.

Sam de Brito has spent more than a decade writing for TV, film and newspapers. In his first book, No Tattoos Before You’re Thirty, he offers advice to his unborn children. In his latest offerings, The Lost Boys and Building a Better Bloke, he takes the pulse of Aussie manhood. Now it’s your turn as he expounds on the business of being a bloke.

James Cameron has been designing menswear for the past decade. In this time he has witnessed more than his fair share of trends and fashions, most of which should never have involved men, but men and fashion should not be mutually exclusive. There are a few guidelines every man should know and follow and still hold on to their masculinity.

Have a computer or IT problem or issue? Then just Ask Chris Thomas! Chris Thomas founded Westnet in 1994, and today runs Technical Support for the mid-tier Internet Service Provider. Chris has helped Westnet win countless awards for customer service in the ISP space.

Clive Dorman is one of Australia’s most experienced travel journalists. Every week for 17 years his column Travellers’ Check dealt with travel consumer issues. His weekly column now returns online looking at travel intelligence: where the value is, what to do, using the collective information-gathering of you.